


What's In A Name

by prinverine (tannenbrightfeather)



Series: She'll Be Apples [1]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Actual Australian Pyro, M/M, Pre-Movie, Pre-Slash, Pyro and Colossus Are Friends, no real plot, totally self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 12:50:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15972665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tannenbrightfeather/pseuds/prinverine
Summary: Kindred spirit just became a thoroughly acceptable term for the boy sitting across from St John. Flipping to the back of his journal, St John rips out a page and writes out ST JOHN in big, block letters. “Here, take a squiz.” He slides the paper across the table. “It’s a pretty common name back in ‘Straya, but here…"-Part one of my ridiculously self-indulgent series about Pyro actually being Australian. That's the entire plot.





	What's In A Name

**Author's Note:**

> Who me? Mad at Pyro being Americanised by the movies and then butchered by well-meaning fic writers? Just a little. This is just me being dumb, and there's more dumbness to come, so hey. There'll be a glossary at the end. Also, I had no intention of bringing up The Great Lemonade Debate, but like, y'all American lemonade is nasty. Sidenote, this is set in 1998, and St John and Bobby are like 14/15.

Bobby takes himself off to the showers to douse himself in cold water as the summer heat continues to rise, and since St John has no desire to willingly subject himself to Bobby’s frigid version of ‘cold water’ – which is usually more ice slush than actual water – he decides to find a nice sunny spot in the rec room to spread out in. One of his battered journals tucked under his arm, and an assortment of pens spilling out of his pocket where they’re bumped up against his shiny new lighter, his bare feet are silent on the floorboards as he leisurely strolls from the room he shares with Bobby to the large rec room.

The room is desolate, aside from one of the older students St John vaguely recognises from the very few weeks he’s been at the mansion. Cooped up at a table, paper and charcoals scattered around him, St John decides he might have found a kindred spirit – or at least someone who won’t disturb him while he writes. “Mind if I sit here?” he asks quietly, tapping the unoccupied end of the table, eagerly eyeing up the sunbeam falling across the plush chair pushed underneath it.

“Nyet,” the older boy says, equally quiet, and there’s a soft sound as the chair St John is looking at slides away from the table to invite him to sit down.

St John briefly thinks this mutant is telekinetic, until he sees the large foot nudging the chair leg. Not telekinetic, just large. “Thanks, mate,” he says, setting his journal down and rolling the pens in his fingers.

In companionable silence, St John and his stoic, artistic acquaintance ply their craft, the scratch of pens and charcoal on high-quality paper the only sound in the sun-hazy rec room. At one point, a tiny little boy wearing giant glasses slips in and blinks at the TV to turn it on, playing some sort of nature documentary on the lowest volume. It’s so relaxing, St John doesn’t even realise the afternoon has arrived until he’s written twelve pages of coherent story, and Dr Grey is quietly bringing them a tray of cold drinks.

“Some of the younger children made some lemonade,” she tells them, her face radiating pride in her students as she sets two glasses on the table and then hands one to the boy on the couch, “they didn’t want anyone to miss out.”

St John looks up from his page and eyes the cloudy yellow stuff suspiciously. He’d learned the hard way that _American_ lemonade is not the same thing as _Australian_ lemonade, and he doesn’t trust the weird, non-carbonated American stuff.

Dr Grey laughs at the pinched expression, having witnessed St John’s first encounter with ‘real’ lemonade on his third day at the institute. “It won’t bite you, Saint John,” she tells him, leaning in conspiringly with a small smirk. “And the Cuckoos will be ever so disappointed to learn you didn’t at least try it.”

He nabs the glass and prepares to skull the traitorous stuff. St John is more scared of the miniature Cuckoo girls than he is of the lemonade. “Well, ‘least I’m not drinking with the flies,” he mutters, eyeing his table-mate as the large mutant takes the suddenly-fragile looking glass and narrows his eyes at it before his entire body coats itself in steel. “Ooroo, me old mate,” St John chokes out, a little in awe at a mutation like that, and he tips the glass back.

“See, that wasn’t so horrible, was it, Saint John?” Dr Grey says, still ginning as St John’s face takes on a rather shocked expression when he realises that he quite liked the drink. “What about you, Peter?”

“Is good,” apparently-Peter replies, his own glass empty by his elbow as he resumes his careful drawing. St John doesn’t miss the odd expression that flashes across that oh-so handsome face. He thinks he might just be mirroring it.

St John waits for Dr Grey to leave the room before saying, “Your name isn’t… pronounced ‘Peter’, is it?”

Not-Peter’s head jerks up and he looks at St John with an unreadable expression. “Nyet,” he says again after a beat. “And… yours is not pronounced ‘Saint John’?”

Kindred spirit just became a thoroughly acceptable term for the boy sitting across from St John. Flipping to the back of his journal, St John rips out a page and writes out ST JOHN in big, block letters. “Here, take a squiz.” He slides the paper across the table. “It’s a pretty common name back in ‘Straya, but here… all these yanks take one look at it and go ‘Oh! Saint John! Your name is two separate words, ‘Saint’ and ‘John’! I’m so fucking clever, I’m not even going to listen to how you say your own bloody name!’” He’s not sure when his lighter had appeared in his hand, but he clicks it agitatedly.

“You accent gets much thicker when you’re mad, you know this, yes?” Not-Peter tells St John in amusement.

“Shush,” St John says with a laugh. “My name is _St John_ ,” and he sounds it out over-dramatically, “ _Siiin-juhn_ , St John!” To illustrate his point, he slaps his pen down on the table. “Struth!”

Holding a large hand out, Not-Peter gestures for the pen and paper. What he turns back is the name PIOTR in elegant script that strangely befits his stoic personality. “It may be the Russian equivalent of ‘Peter’, but is pronounced like Piotr.”

“Pyoh-ter?” St John tries, already knowing his accent is dragging the syllables wrong. He thinks of the little old Russian lady who had lived next door. She’d painted his mother a set of nesting dolls once, and St John remembers how her tongue had rolled over certain sounds. “Piotr? Piotr. Is that right?”

“Da,” Piotr says quietly. “You and little Katya are the only ones who have ever even tried, St John. Your name is like Sinclair, I believe.”

St John’s eyebrows shoot up. “I’d never thought of that, but yeah!” He picks up a new pen and quickly writes this little factoid down, already planning on using that somewhere in his story later on. “I just… it’s so annoying that they don’t even listen to how _we_ pronounce our names, like you’d think that would be a pretty big clue.”

“What does Bobby call you?” Piotr has his charcoal in hand again, and he resumes his drawing while St John clicks his lighter on and carefully burns the piece of paper with their names written on it.

What? He gets fidgety when he doesn’t burn something.

“He calls me Johnny, mainly,” he says. “I hated being called that as a kid, but I guess it’s okay when Bobby does it.” And then his cheeks start flushing and he curses himself. “Oi, stop smirking at me!” He pouts at Piotr as Piotr schools his smirk into a less-threatening expression. “That’s better.” Stroking his chin thoughtfully, St John leans his chair back on two legs. “You’re a good bloke, Piotr.”

“And you, St John.” Piotr turns his drawing around and pushes it across the table top. “Even if you say the strangest things.” He waves over his shoulder as he leaves the room, heading towards the kitchen. “Do vstrechi.”

Returning the gesture with an Aussie salute, which St John realises moments after doing it looks remarkedly like batting a fly away from his face and not a ‘goodbye, friend’ gesture, he pulls the drawing over so he can look at it properly. “You beauty,” he exclaims to himself, grinning brightly at the extremely well done sketch of himself dressed like Steve Iriwn. “Hey, uh…” St John tries to recall the name of the kid still curled up on the couch. “Oi, Jones, can you get international channels on that thing?”

“Sure,” Jones murmurs, eyes never once leaving the screen. “But only if you want to watch something with animals in it. I only want to watch animal shows.”

Hopping over the back of the couch and settling beside the younger mutant, St John says, “See if you can tee-up some episodes of ‘The Crocodile Hunter’.”

Bobby finds them still sitting there when the sky is starting to turn pink a few hours later. It’s finally cool enough for him to venture back into the corridors without whining, and he’s only wearing cotton shorts and a tank top, cold water still rolling down is skinny limbs. “Hey, you guys having a little afternoon nap there?”

“He is,” Jones tells Bobby, not looking away from the TV as he points to St John, the Australian passed out with his head tipped sideways on the arm and Jones perched in the crook of his bent legs. ‘The Crocodile Hunter’ is still playing, Steve Irwin talking enthusiastically about the giant snake he has draped around his neck. “His journal is still on the table, make sure he doesn’t forget it.”

Ruffling the kid’s hair, Bobby wonders if it’s worth waking St John up. His roommate is still struggling with the time difference between New York and Sydney, prone to random sleeps during the day and then bouts of insomnia at night. “Thanks, Jones,” he says, trying to work out if he could pick St John up without jostling him.

“I got him,” a voice says, and Bobby looks over to see Piotr Rasputin sitting at the same table where St John’s journal is sitting. There are four empty glasses in front of Piotr, and one by the journal, and Bobby sulks when he realises he’d missed lemonade while trying to drown himself in ice. Piotr smiles at Bobby as he walks over and scoops St John into his arms. “Come, we take St John upstairs.”

“You… said Johnny’s name funny,” Bobby blurts out as the two of them are walking through the corridor, St John’s journal tucked under Bobby’s arm, and St John tucked up in Piotr’s.

“Nyet, my friend. I said it correctly.” Piotr waits for Bobby to push the room door open. “He would never tell you this, I hear Australians are particularly stubborn when it comes to sharing things with their friends, but he is annoyed that no one says his name right.”

They settle St John on top of his sheets and Bobby tugs the pens and lighters out of his shorts before he rolls on top of them and stabs himself. “His name?”

“Is pronounced like ‘singeing’, but without the ‘g’. Singein’. St John.” Piotr chuckles to himself. “I do not think our little firebug has seen the irony.”

Bobby hums thoughtfully, and bids goodbye to Piotr until he drags St John back downstairs for dinner. Fishing a comic book out from under his bed, Bobby flops down on his bed to read until St John returns to the land of the living.

“Morning, St John,” Bobby says when he notices his roommate blinking blearily around an hour or two later. “I see you made a new friend today, well done. I’m so proud of you.” And he laughs uproariously when St John lobs a shoe at his head as a punishment for the blatant sarcasm in Bobby’s voice. “Come on, dick, let’s go get dinner.”

St John grabs Bobby’s arm before they leave the room. “You said my name,” he says, eyes downcast a little shyly. “Thanks, Bobert.” He nudges his elbow against Bobby’s.

“What did I say about that nickname!” It’s Bobby’s turn to be embarrassed, and he just catches St John’s shit-eating grin before he takes off down the corridor. “Get back here, Johnny, I’m gonna kick your ass!”

“Gotta catch me first, dropkick!” St John hollers back.

They get in trouble for running in the corridors, and maybe for throwing fireballs and icicles at each other and creating big wet patches on the carpet, but it was totally worth it, because for the first time since he got to the mansion, St John actually feels like he’s not a total stranger in what is supposed to be his own home. Turns out, there is something in a name after all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Brief Glossary  
> Drinking with the flies - drinking alone  
> Ooroo - goodbye  
> Straya - lazy way Australians say 'Australia'  
> Struth - it's like exclaiming 'fuck!' at the end of a sentence (usually used by old people but most teens use it ironically)  
> Take a squiz - have a look  
> Dropkick - little bit like douchebag or dickhead
> 
> Thanks for reading everyone! You can find my X-Men tumblr at [prinverine](http://www.prinverine.tumblr.com). Please leave a comment and kudos, and I'll see you all in the next instalment, which will either be about spiders or kids TV, I haven't decided yet.


End file.
